North Korea has warned it will 'respond to fire with fire' as the war of words with the US continues.

An official for the country's foreign ministry made the alarming statement today, adding that the US will just have to put up with North Korea's military status.

Choe Son-hui, director-general of the North American department of North Korea's foreign ministry, said possession of nuclear weapons was 'a matter of life and death' for the regime as they are needed to respond to potential attack.

But the secretive state does not plan on having any talks with the US, the spokesman added.

Furthermore, the Choe told a non-proliferation conference in Moscow his country sees any attempt to 'strangle' North Korea via UN sanctions was an attempt to declare war.

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North Korea has issued another chilling threat to the US (Image: Getty)

Donald Trump has also issued a series of threats to the rogue state (Image: REX/Shutterstock)

"This is a matter of life and death for us," RIA news agency reported him as saying. "The currentsituation deepens our understanding that we need nuclear weapons to repel a potential attack."

"We will respond to fire with fire."

Meanwhile, Moscow and Washington are continuing a dialogue on North Korea and the future of the international deal on Iran's nuclear program, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said today.

Iran's own nuclear status has become a sore point in recent days with Trump once again slamming the Obama-led deal with the country to reduce proliferation of weapons.

Lavrov urged world powers to get behind a joint Russian-Chinese roadmap for settling the crisis over North Korea's weapons programme.

Russia is pushing for a 'road map' to solve the North Korea crisis (Image: Euronews)

Speaking at the same conference on non-proliferation in Moscow, Lavrov said that the break-up of a deal on Iran's nuclear programme would send an alarming message about international security mechanisms, and could impact the situation on the Korean peninsula.

The latest inflammatory rhetoric from North Korea comes as Kim Jong-un's country sent a letter to Australia's parliament warning their ally Donald Trump will "totally destroy the whole world".

"If Trump thinks that he would bring the DPRK, a nuclear power, to its knees through nuclear war threat, it will be a big miscalculation and an expression of ignorance," the letter, published by the Sydney Morning Herald, said.

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"Trump threatened to totally destroy the DPRK... it is an extreme act of threatening to totally destroy the whole world."

A spokeswoman for Australia’s Foreign Minister told Reuters the Herald report was accurate and the paper’s copy of the letter, dated September 28, was genuine.

Titled 'Open Letter to Parliaments of Different Countries', the note said it was sent from North Korea’s Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, to Australia’s Embassy in the same city, as well as to other countries, without naming them.

DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.

There are fears Kim Jong-un is preparing to authorise a fresh missile test (Image: AFP)

Tension has soared on the peninsula following a series of weapons tests by North Korea and a string of increasingly bellicose exchanges between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump, in a speech last month at the United Nations, threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea if necessary to defend itself and allies and called the North’s leader Kim Jong Un a "rocket man" on a suicide mission.

The letter calls for "countries loving independence, peace and justice" to discharge their duty and keep "sharp vigilance against the heinous and reckless moves of the Trump administration trying to drive the world into a horrible nuclear disaster."